


Theft

by Bellatrix_Wannabe_89



Series: OQ Happy Ending Week [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Evil Queen | Regina Mills as Roni, Hyperion Heights, OQ Happy Ending Week, Roni's Bar (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-10 00:45:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15279852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89/pseuds/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89
Summary: “You broke into my bar!” “You hit me over the head with your bat.” “After you broke into my bar!” “All the more reason why you should allow me to buy you a drink, M’lady.”OQ Happy Ending week, Day 5 (Friday )





	Theft

Roni Miller hated police stations. It reminded her of all the times before when she would be arrested for public drinking, drugs, God so many drugs, shoplifting, prostitution… Whatever bullshit charge the Hyperion Heights police force would use to throw her into a holding cell for a few nights as an excuse to play grab-ass with her or even go so far as to shove their foul smelling chubby little cock in her for a few minutes before they sent her on her way.

She didn't mind it though. Not much. Why should she expect cops to behave any different then all the other men in her life during that time?

Weaver had gotten her clean. It may not exactly been orthodox, locking her in his apartment and leaving her there to scream and cry and vomit and break everything he owned for a whole week until she had detoxed before he drove her to her first meeting, but it had worked. She never picked up a needle again, she never stood on another street corner… When Roni asked what would happen with all the drug dealers and John's who would be coming after her, he just told her not to worry about it.

That was how the two became both friends as well as foils for one another. He helped her, he expected help in return, and while he never threw her past in her face, that dangerous smugness that let her know just what he was capable of was always lurking just beneath the surface.

That was seventeen years ago. Since then she had gone on to open her bar, almost adopted a beautiful baby boy, and hadn't been inside a police station since the day Weaver had freed her from the cell and brought her to his apartment.

There was a bit of a difference between then and now though. Then she was inside the cell. Now; she was glaring at the person sitting inside.

"I want him charged with everything!" shouted Roni at Rogers who had been the one to pick him up after a frantic call from Roni's bar at 3 in the morning. "Breaking and entering, theft, property damage…!"

"M'lady, I'll give you a thousand dollars if you stop shouting," the blue eyed man in the cell groaned as he put his head in his hands.

Not only was Robin Locs nursing a bloody bad hangover but, thanks to Roni's bat, a large bloody gash on the side of his head added to his pounding headache.

"I'll shout as loud as I want!" Roni barked, proving her point by raising her voice even louder and making Robins groans more pronounced. "Rogers." She turned her attention back to the one handed cop. "Do you know anyone in prison who particularly enjoys beating the shit out of thieves? Because I'd REALLY like him to be his cellmate."

"You act like I stole your damn virtue instead of a few dollars out of your register."

"Right there! See! He admitted it!"

Robin rolled his eyes as he turned towards an amused Rogers. "Can you please do something to quiet her down?"

"Afraid not, Mate. When your bar gets robbed, rules say that you get to harass the guy that did it."

Roni sent the thief a particularly smug smirk that lasted as long as it took for Weaver to come in.

"What brings you to our humble abode, Roni?" The Scottish Detective asked.

"She caught someone breaking into her bar at closing time,"said Rogers. "Chased after him with a bat, got him pretty hard."

"Robin Locs at your service," the man in cell introduced himself. "I'd bow but I'm afraid if I stand up I might just pass out."

Weaver looked at the man in the cage for a moment, a slow dangerous grin appearing on his imp like face.

"This man broke into your bar, Roni?"

"Caught him red handed," she said proudly.

"And where exactly did you hit him?"

"In the head as you might be able to tell from this profusely bleeding cut," Robin answered for her.

"No no, you misunderstand my question. Where did you hit him? In your bar or outside? What was he doing when you bashed his skull in?"

"Everything was shut down, I went to the bathroom, came back out and he was behind the register," Roni explained. "I yelled, he ran, I grabbed my bat and followed him outside, hit him in the head."

"Ah see, now that is a problem."

Rogers looked between an equally confused Roni and the detective who had taken him under his wing.

"Washington state does not have 'defend your castle' doctrine," Weaver said to the crowd. "Ergo, Roni, you broke the law by hitting him the moment he stepped outside your bar."

"Oh are you kidding me?!" Roni barked, unable to look at that annoying smugness that the thief now wore and that stupid mischievous glint in his ocean blue eyes.

"Afraid that's the law. Now, was your bar locked or unlocked when he came in?"

"I believe the doors were unlocked, Detective," said Robin with a smirk.

"Unlocked but it was pretty damn clear we were closed!"

"Pretty clear doesn't put a lock on your door. At most we can charge him with petty theft, but you would be looking at felonious assault and battery."

"Weaver, she caught him with the hand in the till," Rogers argued.

"Do you disagree with my legal assessment, Detective Rogers?"

"No but-."

"Good." Weaver nodded towards the man in the cage. "Cut him loose."

"Weaver, come on!" Roni yelled at the older detective as the younger one sighed and unlocked the cell door. "This is crap and you know it!"

"I don't make the laws, I just follow them to the best of my ability." The detective ignored the fire filled glare the barkeep was throwing at him. "Who knows, you might just thank me for this one day… Dearie."

"You're an ass, Weaver!" Roni yelled at the back of the retreating detective.

Robin smirked as the cell door creaked open and he stepped out a free man.

"You're an asshole," she spat.

"You're beautiful."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh I thought we were stating things that were obvious."

Roni glared at the man who just gave her that dashing- no not dashing, annoying. That annoying smile. "Too bad your flirting skills are on par with any other skills you probably possess; non existent."

"Oh that wasn't flirting, M'lady." He took a step closer to the barkeep and in a moment of idiocy on her part, she found that she couldn't turn away from the blue of his eyes and, for half a moment, she didn't want to either. "When I flirt, you'll know it."

Without so much as a goodbye, the man turned and walked out of the police station.

—-

Roni hated slow nights. Slow nights meant less tips for her, more anxiety when it came time to do payroll, more nail biting when it was time for rent. But it also gave her some time to lean back and relax, to talk with her regulars instead of not getting half a word in edgewise with them while she ran around filling drink orders.

She had just poured herself a glass of whiskey when she heard her door open. Roni smiled at the sound of the door shutting behind the newcomer.

"What can I get- Oh you've GOT to be kidding me!"

"How much for a pint, M'lady?" asked Robin as he sat down at one of the empty leather seats at the bar.

"Go away!" she barked at the man who had tried to rob her the night before.

"What, a man can't buy a drink at a pub in this country anymore?"

"Not one he tried to rob the other night!"

"Burglarize, actually. You can only rob a person, you burglarize a dwelling or place of business," he clarified.

Roni didn't bother responding to the smug thief, instead hoping her glare sent all the message she needed.

Instead of being deferred though he just chuckled softly and leaned forward on the bar.

"Let me buy you a drink."

"No!"

"One drink."

"You broke into my bar!"

"You hit me over the head with your bat."

"After you broke into my bar!"

"All the more reason why you should allow me to buy you a drink, M'lady."

Damn that stupid good looking grin, damn his confident cocky accent, and damn Roni's own face for betraying her and for turning her lips up into a smile.

Roni leaned back against the bar, crossing her arms in front of her Van Halen tank top, her cleavage on full display for the customers as a means for more tips.

"I get my drinks for free."

Robin smirked at her. "Okay… how about this?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, getting out a ten dollar bill and stuffing it into the half full tip jar.

"That way I can buy you a drink whenever you wish."

"Why would I use money in my tip jar for a drink when I can just drink for free here?"

"You're making flirting very difficult."

"So NOW you're flirting?"

"Trying to at least."

She chuckled as she turned her back on him, pouring him a glass of whiskey, he seemed like a whiskey type of man. Roni glanced back at him for a moment before she turned back to his drink, making a motion with her hand like she had dropped something into the glass, not that she would ever risk her license to do something like that to someone, before she turned back around.

"Here," she told him with a mischievous grin. "On the house."

Robin took the drink and, without taking his eyes from her he downed half the drink, licking his lips rather suggestively afterwards.

"Delicious."

Roni raised her brow at the man. "You just… you-."

"You wouldn't do that to me," he said confidently. "I trust you."

"You have less reason to trust me than I have to trust you," she argued. "And trust me I have a LOT of reasons to mistrust you…"

"Perhaps. But you wouldn't hurt someone like that. You're too good a person."

Roni couldn't help the snicker. This man clearly didn't know her.

"I think you're the first person in Washington to ever call me 'good'."

"You are though." Robin nodded towards the odd little nick-knack she had framed besides the middle shelf of liquor. It was a large metal coin, dark purple with a simple '9/23/00' in inky black lettering. "That coin right there is proof that no one's path is set. That people can move towards the light."

Roni looked at the man, truly looked at him for a long moment. Robin no longer wore that smug boisterous skin he had been wearing thus far. He was looking at her with kindness and gentleness in those ocean blue eyes. Something very few men had ever looked at her with before. The only one she could even think of was her regular, Henry Mills, but this was a different kind of look than what the author looked at her with…

"Twelve years," said Robin, interrupting her thoughts.

There was no flirtation in his voice this time. No smugness, no outrageous cockiness… He was actually being real with her.

Robin reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet again, pulling out his own metal coin and slapping it on the bar. This one a dark moss green, '06/17/05' in olde English style script.

"My wife Mary was four months pregnant with my boy when she got sick and passed," he told her. "After that I… fell into a dark hole for a few years. A VERY dark hole. My friends managed to pull me out of it thankfully but it was touch and go for a while."

Roni gazed down at the bar top, running her finger over a scratch that was embedded in the wood.

"I'm so sorry," she told the thief as she lifted her gaze to look at him. "No one should ever have to go through that."

Sensing that she wanted to continue he waited for her to continue.

"My fiancée Dan, his apartment caught fire when he was sleeping. Police said it was arson but they never figured out who did it. After that I had no one but the needle to keep me company."

"I'm truly sorry, Roni. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been for you."

A smile. A true soft smile graced her lips. "Thank you."

Brown eyes locked on blue for a moment and for one blissful moment nothing seemed to exist apart from the two damaged souls in front of one another who had fought so hard for their second chance…

"Hi, Roni!"

The excited greeting brought both Roni and Robin out of the moment they were sharing. The barkeep shook her head as she turned towards the young curly haired blonde who came bouncing in.

"Hey, Tilly," Roni greeted the young curly haired blonde. The bartender whistled as she looked over the ensemble the girl was wearing, clearly new tight fitting dark red spaghetti strap dress that reached an inch or two above her knees with and a pair of equally new but modest heels to compliment it.

"Nice digs," she complimented the blonde who had shown up at her bar more and more often since Margot had began working there.

Tillys face lit up as if she had been given all of Midas' gold.

"Thanks! Margot's taking me someplace special tonight. Where they actually bring the food to you, and I'm going to look as beautiful for my girl as she always looks for me," Tilly said proudly.

It was then she saw Robin and remembered the reason she had come into the bar. She beamed at the thief and wrapped her arms around him, earning a chuckle and a friendly pat on the hand from him and a confused look from Roni

"And it's all thanks to this man right here! He gave me two HUNDRED dollars last night to buy this dress after I told him I didn't have anything to wear. Not one, but TWO hundred dollars."

Roni crosses her arms in front of her again as she looked at the man.

"Did he now?"

There was a hint of amusement in her voice which let Robin know it was okay to smirk at the barkeep.

"Yup!" said Alice, missing the messages between them. "He's been giving me LOADS of stuff, Roni! Food, money, a winter coat, he even showed me how to rig the washing machines in the laundromat so I don't have to pay!"

"Well he sounds like a regular Robin Hood."

"Yup! That's actually one of my favorite books and you, Mr. Robin Locs, definitely fits the bill."

"Why thank you, Tilly," Robin said with a kind smile. "But isn't your date starting soon?"

Tilly looked at the broken watch that only she seemed to understand and let out a small cry of excitement.

"Gah! Yes, okay, I need to go but I just wanted to show it off to you before I went. I'll see you tomorrow for breakfast?"

Knowing that 'for breakfast' meant that Robin would dine and dash with a doggy bag for Tilly at one of Hyperion Heights many restaurants, he nodded.

"Of course."

Another beaming grin for the girl before she left the bar.

"So," Roni said with amusement and, dare she say it, a touch of flirtiness in her tone. "You stole from my bar… to buy that girl a dress so she could wear it on a big date."

"I didn't know her size," he admitted. "Figured stealing the money and giving it to her would be easier."

"It probably was… of course you also suffered a mild concussion as your punishment…"

"It was worth it. You should have seen her face when I handed her the money."

Roni chuckled as she grabbed his now empty glass.

"You could have just told me you were looking to help a homeless girl feel good about herself, I would have given you the cash."

"Yes but then my overall plan wouldn't have worked," he admitted.

"Oh? And what plan would that be?"

As she set down his glass in front of him, she let her finger gently run up his exposed forearm and over a lion crest tattoo on his wrist.

Robin bit his lip slightly as he picked up his glass with his left hand, not wanting to pull away from her gentle but seductive, almost magical, touch.

"It'd give me an excuse to come in and buy you enough drinks to pay you back what I took."

"Two hundred dollars worth in drinks? That's gonna take a lot of whiskey…"

Robin smirked as he gently grabbed hold of the hand that was slowly stroking his tattoo, running his thumb over the top of her hand, thanking God when she didn't pull away.

"I got time, M'lady… how about you?"

Roni bit her lip as her eyes traveled over his face before she grabbed the whiskey she had poured herself what felt like a lifetime ago and raised her glass with her freehand and gently clinked the glass against his.

"Yes I suppose I do…"


End file.
